Last month, a group of young adults who aged out of foster care attended a luncheon at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, TN to share their experience transitioning from foster care to adulthood with an audience of over 100 people. All of the speakers participate in Youth Villages’ LifeSet program, which provides comprehensive services to young adults aging out of the child welfare system. Young adults in the program meet weekly with trained mentors who help them address diverse needs, such as housing, education, and mental and physical health. “LifeSet couldn’t do college for me, but they put me in a position where I was able to focus on school and get that done,” shares Tristan, a LifeSet participant and student at Columbia University. After one year of being in the program, 91% of participants are reported to be in school, graduated, or employed.



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Next month, Northampton Airport in Massachusetts will host its second annual Runway 5K Race to raise money for Treehouse Foundation’s innovative programs. Last year, the Runway event raised over $80,000 for Treehouse Easthampton Community, a multi-generational community that provides support services to children in foster care, their foster parents, and older adults. “In Easthampton, and soon in Boston, we offer an award-winning vision for three generations to live together. It offers children the stable, loving community that everyone deserves. Surrounded by families and older adults who feel valued as honorary grandparents, kids at Treehouse are breaking the cycle of poverty and problems too long associated with foster care,” says Judy Cockerton, Founder and CEO of the Treehouse Foundation.

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Wildflyer Coffee, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit established in 2017, aims to assist youth experiencing homelessness by cultivating their professional skills and facilitating stable employment opportunities. Driven by a mission to end youth homelessness, Wildflyer Coffee runs a program that involves a rotating cohort of around a dozen individuals ages 16 to 24. In addition to employment, participants receive financial and mental wellness support from program managers. Notably, 50% of the nonprofit’s funding comes from sales, with the remaining 50% from donations. The impact of Wildflyer Coffee is significant, intentionally addressing youth homelessness in the local community while providing avenues for personal and professional growth for young people. 



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Christian Bale, actor and co-founder of foster care nonprofit Together California, is leading the construction of a foster care village in Palmdale, CA. Inspired by his late father’s activism and the birth of his daughter, Bale’s project seeks to keep siblings together in foster care to cultivate supportive environments while mitigating trauma. The village costs $22 million and includes 12 homes, two transition studios for older youth, and a community center for children and guardians to enjoy. The project is slated to be completed in 2025. Bale hopes that this village may serve as a prototype for future projects, encouraging Californians to join in addressing the challenges that vulnerable youth face.

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In order to better support families with newborns, a new program named Rx Kids in Flint, Michigan, delivers direct cash payments to all families with infants in the city. The program offers a one-time payment of $1,500 after 20 weeks of pregnancy and $500 monthly during a newborn’s first year. Flint is one of the poorest places in the country where nearly 70% of children grow up in poverty. The new program is funded by a private-public partnership, and enough funds have been raised so far to run the program for at least three years. The goal is to fund the program for five years. “The program is about a new vision of how we fundamentally should be caring for each other,” said one of the program’s co-directors, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha.



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While our stories typically feature stories from around the nation, we are excited to share some celebrity coverage from the UK. Former Southampton Football Club player Pedro Pelé Monteiro and his wife Jo share their stories of being foster parents and fostering 70 children over the past decade following Pelé’s retirement. The couple describes their experiences as “that thing that you've got inside of you that you want to help.” Theo, a 15-year-old who was taken care of by the family for the past 18 months, describes his experiences as life-changing, saying that it is great to have a place to come home, feel welcomed and loved as a family. Jo and Pelé are now leading a campaign with the club and Southampton City Council to find more foster carers.



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